plaintextaccounting/quickref/index.md

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Syntax Quick Reference for the Ledger-Likes

The journal file formats of Ledger, hledger and Beancount, side by side. Last tested: 2016.
See also: separate Ledger, hledger, Beancount versions; original google sheet version; plaintextaccounting.org.

Contents:

• Journal Format
  • Basic example
  • Comments
  • Basic transactions
  • Dates
  • Account names
  • Amounts
  • More transaction features
  • Prices
  • Balance assertions
  • Balance assignments
  • Directives
    • account, open
    • close
    • commodity
    • market price

Journal format

Things in square brackets are  optional. Some notes in the Ledger column are common to all.

	Ledger https://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Journal-Format https://ricostacruz.com/cheatsheets/ledger.html	hledger https://hledger.org/hledger.html#journal-format	Beancount https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.html https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_cheat_sheet.html
Basic example	; a comment 2016/1/1 set opening balance    assets:checking       $500.00    equity:opening balances 2016/1/5 farmer's market    expenses:groceries     $50.00    Assets:checking Comments, directives, and/or transactions in any order	; a comment 2016/1/1 set opening balance    assets:checking       $500.00    equity:opening balances 2016/1/5 farmer's market    expenses:groceries     $50.00    assets:checking	; a comment 2016-01-01 open Assets:Checking 2016-01-01 open Equity:Opening-Balances 2016-01-01 open Expenses:Groceries 2016-01-01 txn "set opening balance"    Assets:Checking         500.00 USD    Equity:Opening-Balances 2016-01-05 txn "farmer's market"    Expenses:Groceries     50 USD    Assets:Checking All referenced accounts must have an open directive
Comments	; comment # comment % comment | comment * comment and org-mode outline node Non-comment lines may end with a comment Indented comments are attached to the preceding transaction or posting	; comment # comment * comment and org-mode outline node	; comment Any unrecognised line is also a comment
Basic transactions	DATE [[PAYEE | ] DESCRIPTION]    ACCOUNT    AMOUNT    ACCOUNT    [AMOUNT] A transaction contains any number of indented postings (usually two), whose amounts must sum to zero At least two spaces required between account and amount One amount may be omitted	DATE [DESCRIPTION]    ACCOUNT    AMOUNT    ACCOUNT    [AMOUNT] Same	DATE txn [["PAYEE"] "DESCRIPTION"]    ACCOUNT    AMOUNT    ACCOUNT    [AMOUNT] DESCRIPTION must be in double quotes, can be multiline No need for two spaces between account and amount
Dates	YYYY-MM-DD YYYY/MM/DD YYYY.MM.DD MM-DD MM/DD MM.DD Other formats specified with  --input-date-format	YYYY-MM-DD YYYY/MM/DD YYYY.MM.DD MM-DD MM/DD MM.DD	YYYY-MM-DD YYYY/MM/DD YYYY.MM.DD Only YYYY-MM-DD with 8 digits is officially supported
Account names	TOPACCT[:SUBACCT[:...]] Revenues:Salary liabilities:credit card:CITI 1234 other assets:house Account names begin with a letter May contain single spaces May contain subaccounts separated by :	TOPACCT[:SUBACCT[:...]] Same	TOPACCT[:SUBACCT[:...]] Income:Salary Liabilities:CreditCard:CITI-1234 Assets:House Top level account must be one of Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, Expenses Each subaccount must be capitalised Letters, digits and hyphen are allowed (no spaces)
Amounts	One of COMMODITY QUANTITY QUANTITY COMMODITY QUANTITY 10 $10.00 1,000.0001 USD 10 "prepaid classes" COMMODITY is a symbol, word or phrase; if it contains spaces or numbers, it must be in double quotes It can be on the left or right, with or without a separating space QUANTITY is a number with 0 or more decimal places Decimal point is . Digits can be grouped into thousands by , Amount styles influence the standard display style for each commodity	One of COMMODITY QUANTITY QUANTITY COMMODITY QUANTITY 10 $10.00 1,000.0001 USD 10 "prepaid classes" 1.000.000,01 12,34,567.89 Decimal point is .  or , Digit group separator is ,  or . Any digit grouping can be used, not just thousands	QUANTITY COMMODITY 10USD 1000.0001 USD COMMODITY is all capital letters, on the right, and required Decimal point is . Digit group separator ,  is allowed and ignored
More transaction   features	DATE [FLAG] [(CODE)] DESCRIPTION    [FLAG] ACCOUNT  AMOUNT [PRICE] [=BAL]    ...    [FLAG] ACCOUNT  [AMOUNT [PRICE] [=BAL]] FLAG (aka STATE) is empty, ! or * meaning uncleared, pending or cleared CODE is any string, in parentheses DESCRIPTION can be a payee name, narration, or both	DATE [FLAG] [(CODE)] DESCRIPTION    [FLAG] ACCOUNT  AMOUNT [PRICE] [=BAL]    ...    [FLAG] ACCOUNT  AMOUNT [PRICE] [=BAL]	DATE [txn|FLAG] [["PAYEE"] "DESCRIPTION"]    [FLAG] ACCOUNT       AMOUNT [PRICE]    ...    [FLAG] ACCOUNT       AMOUNT [PRICE] The txn keyword may be replaced by a FLAG For just a payee, use "PAYEE" ""
Prices	One of @ UNITPRICE @@ TOTALPRICE and/or one of {LOTUNITPRICE} {=FIXEDLOTUNITPRICE} and/or [LOTDATE] A UNITPRICE or TOTALPRICE also records a market price on this date A LOTDATE is written in square brackets	One of @ FIXEDUNITPRICE @@ FIXEDTOTALPRICE and/or {=FIXEDLOTUNITPRICE} These do not record market prices The lot price syntax is ignored	{LOTUNITPRICE[ / LOTDATE]} and/or one of @ UNITPRICE @@ TOTALPRICE Lot prices are remembered and form distinct commodities, other prices are not If there is both a lot price and a regular price, the latter records a market price
Balance assertions	= AMOUNT (after posting amount & price) 2016-03-10    Expenses:Food      $20    Assets:Cash       $-20 = $80 Asserts the balance in this commodity in this account, excluding subaccounts at this point in the parse order	= AMOUNT (after posting amount & price) Asserts the balance in this commodity in this account, excluding subaccounts on this day. Same day events are processed in parse order	DATE balance ACCOUNT AMOUNT 2014-08-09 balance Assets:Cash 562.00 USD 2014-08-09 balance Assets:Cash 210.00 CAD Asserts the balance in this commodity in this account, including subaccounts at the start of this day
Balance assignments	= AMOUNT (no preceding/inferred posting amount) 2012-03-10 Adjustment    Assets:Cash            = $50    Expenses:Misc Sets the posting amount so as to make the balance assertion true. (The other amountless posting allows the transaction to balance)
Directives	KEYWORD ARGS...    [SUBDIRECTIVES] account alias apply assert bucket capture check comment commodity define end expr fixed include P payee tag test year Timeclock directives: i o b h	KEYWORD ARGS... account (alias for apply) alias apply comment D end include	[DATE] KEYWORD ARGS...    [SUBDIRECTIVES] DATE balance DATE close DATE commodity DATE document DATE event DATE note DATE open DATE pad DATE price DATE txn include option plugin poptag pushtag
account, open	account ACCOUNT     [SUBDIRECTIVES] account Revenues:Salary account Expenses:Food:Chicken    note chicken food expenses    alias food    payee ^(KFC|Popeyes)$    check commodity == "$"    assert commodity == "$"    eval print("Hello!")    default Gives more error checking with --strict  or --pedantic Optional subdirectives do more stuff		DATE open ACCOUNT [COMMODITY[,...]] [METHOD] 2014-05-01 open Assets:Cash USD,CAD Every account posted to needs an open directive with prior date
close			DATE close ACCOUNT
commodity	commodity COMMODITY commodity EUR commodity $   note American Dollars   format $1,000.00   nomarket   default Gives more error checking with --strict  or --pedantic Optional subdirectives do more stuff		DATE commodity COMMODITY    [METADATA] 1867-01-01 commodity CAD    name: "Canadian Dollar"    asset-class: "cash" Attaches metadata to a commodity
market price	P DATE TIME COMMODITY UNITPRICE P 2004/06/21 02:18:02 AAPL $32.91 P 2004/06/21 02:18:02 AU $400.00 Used by -V and -X Also set by transaction prices	P DATE [TIME] COMMODITY UNITPRICE P 2015/8/9 GBP $1.55 Used by -V A time is ignored	DATE price COMMODITY AMOUNT 2014-07-09 price USD  1.08 CAD Also set by transaction prices